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Monday, June 28, 2010

Alfa Romeo

The Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale is an extremely rare and cool road car built by Alfa Romeo. Only 18 are reported to have been made, plus three design studies based on the 33 Stradale the 33.2, Iguana and Carabo.

The Stradale, first built in 1967, was based on the Autodelta Alfa Romeo T33 racing car. The car, designed by Franco Scaglione, and built by Carrozzeria Marazzi, made its debut at the 1967 Turin Motorshow.

Built in an attempt by Alfa to make some of its racing technology available to the public, it was the most expensive automobile for sale to the public in 1968 at US$17,000 (when the average cost of a new car in 1968 was $2,822).

The Stradale is believed to be the first production vehicle to feature dihedral doors, also known as butterfly doors. The Stradale also features windows which seamlessly curve upward into the 'roof' of the vehicle.

The race-bred engine bore no relation to the mass-produced units in Alfa's more mainstream vehicles. Race engineer Carlo Chiti designed an oversquare (78 mm bore x 52,2 mm stroke) dry-sump lubricated 1,995 cc (121.7 cu in) V8 that featured SPICA fuel injection, four ignition coils and 16 spark plugs. The engine used four chain-driven camshafts to operate the valve train and had a rev-limit of 10000 rpm. The engine produced 230 bhp (172 kW) at 8800 rpm in road trim and 270 bhp (200 kW) in race trim.

In another break from convention, Alfa used a six-speed transaxle gearbox by Valerio Colotti. The car takes 5.5 seconds to reach 60 mph (96.56 km/h) from a standing start and has top speed of 260 km/h (160 mph

The Alfa Romeo Competizione is a sports car produced by Italian automaker Alfa Romeo. It was first presented as a concept car at the 2003 Frankfurt Motor Show and later released for sale for the 2007 model year.The car uses a modified Maserati platform and powertrain (Maserati 4200, GranTurismo) and features a Ferrari/Maserati derived 90 degree cross-plane dry-sump lubricated 4.7-litre V8 assembled by Ferrari.

The top engine performance figures may be summarized as a maximum power of 331 kilowatts (450 PS) at 7000 revolutions per minute, a peak torque of 480 newton metres (354 lbf·ft) at 4750 rpm (80% at 2500 rpm) with an engine redline of 7500 rpm and rev limiter of 7600 rpm.[7] The V8 engine has variable timing in intake valves and compression ratio of 11.3

The six–speed transaxle gearbox has computerized gear selection by means of levers behind the steering wheel and may be used in Manual-Normal; Manual-Sport; Automatic-Normal; Automatic-Sport and Ice modes. The gearbox can shift in 175 milliseconds when using Sport mode. The 8C also has a limited slip differential.

It is fitted with specially developed 20 inch tyres: 245/35 at the front and 285/35 at the rear, fitted on perforated rims in fluid moulded aluminium. The 8C brakes have been called "phenomenal" by Road & Track magazine, with a stopping distance of 32 metres (105.0 ft), when travelling at an initial speed of 97 kilometres per hour (60 mph).

The official top speed is announced to be 292 kilometres per hour (181 mph) but it might be higher, with estimations that it could be around 306 kilometres per hour (190 mph) according to the Road & Track magazine. An Alfa Romeo engineer also stated that it is faster than announced top speed.

Alfa Romeo 8C Spider concept car will be produced a limited series of only 500 units. Powered by 4.7 liters V8 engine (just like the coup? counterpart), 8C spider can delivers 450 hp and is coupled with a 6-speed F1-style paddle shift gearbox and a rear-wheel drive system.